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Some 45 per cent of the 87,480 burglaries reported to the Met last year were dropped. Only one per cent of burglaries resulted in a custodial sentence being handed out.

Half of the 29,576 thefts reported to Bernard Hogan-Howe's force between June and December 2013 were also dropped

Meanwhile, 43 per cent of 36,614 incidents of shoplifting were dropped in 2013.

Overall, just 1.9 per cent of all property crime incidents resulted in a custodial sentence.

Max Chambers, head of crime and justice at the Policy Exchange think-tank, said: 'These figures are truly shocking.

'The fact that no action was taken on nearly half of all incidents last year is unacceptable.

'We need to fundamentally reorder our policing priorities, free the police from responding to so many non-criminal incidents and allow them to focus on doing their job and catching criminals.

'Nothing could be more important for rebuilding public confidence in the police.'

Public confidence in the police - and the Met in particular - has been battered by a string of recent scandals. These include Plebgate and the revelations of mass destruction of documents relating to the Stephen Lawrence case.

Policy Exchange has asked the Labour MP David Lammy to help expose the harmful effects of property crime and what new measures could be implemented to tackle the problem.

Mr Lammy, MP for Tottenham, said: 'Victims of property crime must be reassured that the police are doing everything possible to catch and convict those responsible.

Burglary or robbery doesn't simply result in financial loss. It can have long lasting emotional effects.

'As a society we have developed a much too relaxed attitude about fighting property crime. Politicians, the courts and the police need to step up to the plate and tackle the problem head on.' Earlier this week, it was revealed how police have marked more than 100,000 crimes as solved in the past three years, despite only handing them over to be 'taken into consideration' by the courts.

The high number of cases marked as 'solved' has sparked fears that police could be using the tactic as a way of boosting the number of 'detected' crimes or crimes cleared up by forces.

A spokesman said: 'The MPS investigates every single allegation of crime that it receives and conducts secondary investigations on more than 60 per cent of allegations of crime - substantially above the national average of 45 per cent.'

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Police in Britain's biggest force drop 70 PER CENT of all robbery investigations